.
Family building a sandcastle on the beach near Sarasota,
Florida:
photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1960 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz
Collection, Florida State Library)
A few things for themselves,
Convolvulus and coral,
Buzzards and live-moss,
Tiestas from the keys,
A few things for themselves,
Florida, venereal soil,
Disclose to the lover.
The dreadful sundry of this world,
The Cuban, Polodowsky,
The Mexican women,
The negro undertaker
Killing the time between corpses
Fishing for crayfish...
Virgin of boorish births,
Swiftly in the nights,
In the porches of Key West,
Behind the bougainvilleas,
After the guitar is asleep,
Lasciviously as the wind,
You come tormenting,
Insatiable,
When you might sit,
A scholar of darkness,
Sequestered over the sea,
Wearing a clear tiara
Of red and blue and red,
Sparkling, solitary, still,
In the high sea-shadow.
Donna, donna, dark,
Stooping in indigo gown
And cloudy constellations,
Conceal yourself or disclose
Fewest things to the lover ---
A hand that bears a thick-leaved fruit,
A pungent bloom against your shade.
Wallace Stevens: O Florida, Venereal Soil, 1922, first published in The Dial, volume 73, July 1922
Royal Poinciana in bloom in Key West, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1945 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Convolvulus and coral,
Buzzards and live-moss,
Tiestas from the keys,
A few things for themselves,
Florida, venereal soil,
Disclose to the lover.
The dreadful sundry of this world,
The Cuban, Polodowsky,
The Mexican women,
The negro undertaker
Killing the time between corpses
Fishing for crayfish...
Virgin of boorish births,
Swiftly in the nights,
In the porches of Key West,
Behind the bougainvilleas,
After the guitar is asleep,
Lasciviously as the wind,
You come tormenting,
Insatiable,
When you might sit,
A scholar of darkness,
Sequestered over the sea,
Wearing a clear tiara
Of red and blue and red,
Sparkling, solitary, still,
In the high sea-shadow.
Donna, donna, dark,
Stooping in indigo gown
And cloudy constellations,
Conceal yourself or disclose
Fewest things to the lover ---
A hand that bears a thick-leaved fruit,
A pungent bloom against your shade.
Wallace Stevens: O Florida, Venereal Soil, 1922, first published in The Dial, volume 73, July 1922
Royal Poinciana in bloom in Key West, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1945 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Lois Duncan Steinmetz gazing at the Suwanee River, Florida:
photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 1949 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz
Collection, Florida State Library)
Fishing on the Caloosahatchee River: La Belle, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1947 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Ringling Circus performers at winter quarters in Sarasota, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 1941 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Indoor croquet, Sarasota,
Florida:
photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1940 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz
Collection, Florida State Library)
Mitzi Strother, Miss Florida 1941, posing with a seaside backdrop: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 1941 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Seine net fishermen: Sarasota, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 1942 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Venetian Pool: Coral Gables, Florida. The Venetian Pool, located at 2701 De Soto Blvd. in Coral Gables, Florida, was completed in 1924: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 1945 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Young women at the municipal casino: Lido Beach, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1945 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club. "The Saint Petersburg Shuffleboard Club located in Mirror Lake Park, is said to be the largest participant sports area in the world. With a membership of more of than 7,000, the club has 107 courts where 500 players may play at one time. Besides shuffleboard there are community singing, cards, dominos, and dancing": photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1945 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Retirees playing shuffleboard in Sarasota, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1945 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Men playing chess in St. Petersburg, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 15 July 1947 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Young woman with members of the Three-Quarter Century Softball Club, St. Petersburg, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1947 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Pasadena Community Drive-in Church: Saint Petersburg, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1947 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Hunting with Texas Jim Mitchell and friends in the Florida Everglades: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 23 January 1947 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
"Jay Dee" jungle cruise at Silver Springs: Ocala, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1947 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Pilot boat docked near the phosphate elevator: Boca Grande, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1947 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Guests aboard the S.S. Florida traveling between Miami and Havana: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 1948 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Nora Carrol and Lois Duncan Steinmetz: Sarasota, Florida (taken for Collier's at Sarasota Jungle Gardens): photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 17 November 1948 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Sarasota Sun-Debs at Lido Beach, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 15 January 1949 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Sarasota Sun-Debs being coached on how to pick up objects on the ground at Lido Beach, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 15 January 1949 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Seine nets drying in Naples, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, June 1949 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Teresa Sudol and JoAnn Croak play a game of Gobi: Lido Beach, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 3 October 1949 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Young people at the municipal casino: Lido Beach, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1949 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Group portrait of the Sarasota Sun-Debs at Lido Beach, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1950 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Unidentified Ringling Circus performer, Sarasota, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1950 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Caribbean Club, Key Largo, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1950 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Sarasota Sun-Debs posture training class at Lido Beach, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1950 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Drying fishing nets near Sarasota, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1950 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Navy ships "mothballed" at Green Cove Springs, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1950 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Baseball game at Al Lang Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1950 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
John and Lizzie Wilson from Boston in Bradenton, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 1951 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Treasure Island ticket wagon near St. Petersburg, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 1951 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Silver Springs: Ocala, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 30 June 1952 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Spa Beach in St. Petersburg, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 23 May 1954 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Sarasota High School Sailor Circus acrobat Judy Laurent: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 1955 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Fishing in Sarasota, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1955 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Seven Mile Bridge, Florida Keys: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1955 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Volleyball at the municipal casino: Lido Beach, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 1955 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Sunbathers at Lido Beach, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1955 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Swain family picnicking near the Colony Beach Club: Longboat Key, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 1958 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Tupperware home party, Sarasota, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1958 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Mansion in Sarasota, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1960 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Family in front of their home, Venice East, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, July 1961 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Cowan Construction Company billboard, Venice East, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, July 1961 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
The Flying Wallendas in Sarasota, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 1960s (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
The Flying Wallendas in Sarasota, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, 1960s (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Fire breather Tagora rehearsing before Garry Moore's show at the Circus Hall of Fame, Sarasota, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, December 1966 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Unidentified family at the beach near Sarasota, Florida: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1970 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Barbara Lee dog act at the Sarasota High School Sailor Circus: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, November 1977 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
Pigeon Key from the Seven Mile Bridge, Florida Keys: photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, c. 1955 (Joseph Janney Steinmetz Collection, Florida State Library)
6 comments:
Great to find the circus still in town here at Beyond the Pale. (I’m on the road again, to the biggest, baddest circus of them all: Washington, D&C, so I come late to your wonderful poem-tribute to Emmett Kelly). I was eight or nine when my father first took me to see the Barnum & Baily circus. We got up before dawn to watch the circus train pull in and roustabouts unload everything, using the circus elephants to push the wagons from the flatcars and onto big trucks. The trucks I recognized even then to be of ancient manufacture, and therefore as exotic as the wild animals in their cages. We followed the dawn procession to the circus grounds (an old air field) and watched the Big Top and all the side-show tents go up, again using elephant power to haul the big poles upright. Then we got to eat breakfast in the dining tent. I was too shy to say much to the friendly but still-sleepy acrobat sitting across the rough wood trestle, sipping his coffee and talking with my father. I remember those scenes more vividly than the circus itself, which we went to see that afternoon.
Tom, one of those sun & circus Florida days your poems & pics nail perfectly: this just in from Todd Swindell who is editing the journals of the late poet and activist Ronnie Burk: "In honor of tomorrow night's full moon in Aries (with a partial lunar eclipse, no less), I'd like to share with you some journal jottings of Ronnie's, himself an Aries:
Amphibious men
buttocks on the highwire
your lips stapled to
a pencil sharpener
accordion
alligator
eat your music
in skull cups of
black water
jewel-studded
leptoids
on a floating mattress
creatures given birth to themselves
fingernail
ignition to the
keyhole of
pencil tipped
monster ladies
threading a needle
hole in a torso"
I know I'll have more to say (and think and feel), but before any time passes I need to say that you've really kicked things into high gear here and it's wonderful and intoxicating. Curtis
Revisiting the post I now see that it's about a mythological view of reality. I believe this dreamy view used to be prevalent in our fair (or unfair, as the case may be) land. Everything in these beautiful Joe Steinmetz pictures is so clean, white, posed, and perfect. Why couldn't Time just have stopped 75 years ago?
Things probably kicked into high gear and became intoxicating for me with that group shot of the Sarasota Sun-Debs... en masse, as it were. The composition reminds me a bit of a Cal Mydans WW II wire service photo of a group of bombing victims crowded in the mouth of a cave in Chungking, while Japanese air raids go on outside. The quality of attention of the Sun-Debs, however, seems perhaps somewhat less acutely focused. Understandably.
Lord, a drive-in church! Where did they go from here?
Vassilis, I recall Bob Creeley relating the history of religious worship in his family, down from Puritan days to, latterly, his mother's ultimate relocation from Maine to Florida... where, as Bob told the story, she and her sister, his aunt Bernice, attended "a wild drive-in church in Nokomis, Florida... by then they were too decrepit to get out of the car".
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